Your writing "eras"

[Rob_Royale]

I guess I just have just two 'eras' if you will.
1. Rob writing fantiasies about women he's known in places he's been.
2. Rob writing stories with characters and settings entirely undrept of (until that moment) off the cuff.
At some point the two intermixed a bit but after a while #1 was exhausted and #2 was the only way forward if I wanted to keep writing.

 

[Areala-chan]

Areala-chan's eras:

1) Fanfic era. New IP from the late '90s which gradually outgrew me and all the other writers who were around at the start. Had a small following, was honing writing chops, and learned mainly how to write a first draft that didn't completely suck.

2) First Literotica dalliance. My first two pieces of erotica are now a few years past legal drinking age. I wrote the first while drowning in emotions, wrote the second in a bout of fun, and took a twelve-year vacation.

3) Star Wars. There was a time in the 2000s when Dark Horse held the comic book rights to Star Wars stories. Occasionally they would hold open submissions where people could pitch stories and/or artwork. I pitched two separate stories, neither of which was accepted, but the first was key in that I could see actual improvement and a maturation in my abilities as an author when I compared it to previous work.

4) Return to Lit. Twelve years later, thanks to a prompt to "Write a story about two people falling in love who shouldn't", I went full Flowers in the Attic, and had a lot of fun. The story got a lot more feedback than anything else I'd written to that point, so I offered it up to Sammael Bard for critique here on the forums. Bard quickly brought me back down to earth, pointing out every one of its numerous flaws, and basically saying, "You write a great sex scene, but I don't see a story anywhere that makes me care." Challenge accepted. Crash Into Me was the result a year later, and the results spoke for themselves: it hit the category top list and stayed there for nine years. That, to me, was proof I could do this.

5) Modern Era. Ten years later, having completed two novellas for the site, I accomplished my goal of making a name for myself in the Lesbian Sex category with Chasing Cars. I'll be fifty years old in October, quite a different person than the one who got her start writing fan fiction as a teenager, but much like Bob Dylan, in some regards I feel much younger than that 'me' of more than three decades past.

Wonder what the next ten years hold in store. Guess I'll have to write them myself and see.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm interested to hear how other people think about the phases or stages of their writing. How do you label them? What defines them? What are some of your eras?

I'd never though about breaking it down like that but it's interesting doing it.

Thinking back
- the "no idea what I was doing" era - from early teens to late teens - the "winging it" era. I had no idea what I was doing but I used to write out "hot scenes" to insert into romances I was reading. I still have some of them and they're awful. Mostly straight narrative with very little dialog. LIke the wrost stories on Literotica LOL
- the "John Ringo" era - I read a snippet John wrote for people who wanted to learn to write about taking another author's story you liked and rewriting it in your own words - that was my first story on Literotica - "Hayley's Party" whch was all over the map and kind of grew chapter by chapter and got some nice ratings and feedback that encouraged me to keep going. I learned a lot writing that one and my next few stories sort of continued that learning curve.
- the "Selena Kitt" era - where I used the way she wrote as a model and example - my own stories but I kept hers and her writing style in mind as I wrote for the next 3 or 4 years. I still do to a certain extent - she's a great example.
- the "Chloe" era - from then until now, where I don't really rely on examples but just write my own way and my own plots and stories which are all over the map. Some of my sci-fi uses ideas from other authors - CJ Cherryh for "Welcome to Nockatunga Station," for example, and Heinlein for bits and pieces in my Chinese Hegemony universe. Eileen Chang's short stories and novels were a big influence in the settings for Tales from Old Shanghai, Beowulf was an influence on Blood Sacrifice and Huginn's Yule. As far as what I write though, it's mostly now all my own ideas and things that appeal to me - the two I'm working on at the moment are for Geek Day and totally whacko but they both make me laugh LOL. So humor is an influence too - my own sense of humor anyhow, which can be a bit dark and weird sometimes. I mean, sex with heptapods rotflmao - I still wonder how the heck I came up with that one! The tentacle-romance era LOL